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About Theologia Germanica
Theologia GermanicaTitle: URL: http://www.northwesternseminary.com
anonymous ()Author(s): Grand Rapids, MI: Christian Classics
Ethereal LibraryPublisher: This work was discovered and published
in 1516 by Martin Luther, who said of it that "Next to the Bible
and St. Augustine, no book has
Description:
ever come into my hands from which I have learnt more of God and
Christ, and man and all things that are." It has since appealed to
Christians of all persuasions. Golden Treasure Series, 1893Print
Basis: Public DomainRights: John H. Richards
(jhr@elidor.demon.co.uk) (Digitizer)Contributor(s): All; Classic;
Mysticism; ProofedCCEL Subjects: BV4834 .F6713LC Call no:
Practical theologyLC Subjects: Practical religion. The Christian
life
Works of meditation and devotion
Table of Contents
p. iiAbout This Book. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 1Title Page. . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p.
3Preface. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 5Historical Introduction. . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p.
13Letter from Chevalier Bunsen to the Translator. . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . p. 16Theologia Germanica. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
p. 16 Of that which is perfect and that which is in part, and how
that which is in part is done away, when that which is perfect is
come.. . . . . . . . . . . .
p. 17 Of what Sin is, and how we must not take unto ourselves any
good Thing, seeing that it belongeth unto the true Good alone.. . .
. . . . . . . . . . . .
p. 17 How Man's Fall and going astray must be amended as Adam's
Fall was.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
p. 18 How Man, when he claimeth any good Thing for his own,
falleth, and toucheth God in His Honour.. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
p. 18 How we are to take that Saying, that we must come to be
without Will, Wisdom, Love, Desire, Knowledge, and the like.. . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . .
p. 19 How that which is best and noblest should also be loved above
all Things by us, merely because it is the best.. . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
p. 20 Of the Eyes of the Spirit wherewith Man looketh into Eternity
and into Time, and how the one is hindered of the other in its
Working.. . . . . . . . . . .
p. 21 How the Soul of Man, while it is yet in the Body, may obtain
a Foretaste of eternal Blessedness.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
p. 22
How it is better and more profitable for a Man that he should
perceive what God will do with him, or to what end He will make Use
of him, than if he knew all that Gad had ever wrought, or would
ever work through all the Creatures; and how Blessedness lieth
alone in God, and not in the Creatures, or in any Works.. . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
p. 23
How the perfect Men have no other Desire than that they may be to
the Eternal Goodness what His Hand is to a Man, and how they have
lost the Fear of Hell, and Hope of Heaven.. . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . .
p. 23
How a righteous Man in this present Time is brought into hell, and
there cannot be comforted, and how he is taken out of Hell and
carried into Heaven, and there cannot be troubled.. . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
p. 25 Touching that true inward Peace, which Christ left to His
Disciples at the last. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
iii
p. 26How a Man may cast aside Images too soon.. . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . .
p. 26 Of three Stages by which a Man is led upwards till he
attaineth true Perfection.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
p. 27 How all Men are dead in Adam and are made alive again in
Christ, and of true Obedience and Disobedience.. . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
p. 27Telleth us what is the old Man, and what is the new Man.. . .
. . . . . . .
p. 29 How we are not to take unto ourselves what we have done well:
but only what we have done amiss.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
p. 30
How that the Life of Christ is the noblest and best Life that ever
hath been or can be, and how a careless Life of false Freedom is
the worst Life that can be.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
p. 30
How we cannot come to the true Light and Christ's Life, by much
Questioning or Reading, or by high natural Skill and Reason, but by
truly renouncing ourselves and all Things. . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . .
p. 31
How, seeing that the Life of Christ is most bitter to Nature and
Self, Nature will have none of it, and chooseth a false careless
Life, as is most convenient to her.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
p. 32
How a friend of Christ willingly fulfilleth by his outward Works,
such Things as must be and ought to be, and doth not concern
himself with the rest.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
p. 32 How sometimes the Spirit of God, and sometimes also the Evil
Spirit may possess a Man and have the mastery over him.. . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . .
p. 33
He who will submit himself to God and be obedient to Him, must be
ready to bear with all Things; to wit, God, himself, and all
Creatures, and must be obedient to them all whether he have to
suffer or to do.. . . . . . . . .
p. 34 How that four Things are needful before a Man can receive
divine Truth and be possessed with the Spirit of God.. . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
p. 35
Of two evil Fruits that do spring up from the Seed of the Evil
Spirit, and are two Sisters who love to dwell together. The one is
called spiritual Pride and Highmindedness, the other is false,
lawless Freedom.. . . . . . . . . . . .
p. 36 Touching Poorness of Spirit and true Humility and whereby we
may discern the true and lawful free Men whom the Truth hath made
free.. . . . . . . .
p. 38 How we are to take Christ's Words when He bade forsake all
Things; and wherein the Union with the Divine Will standeth.. . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . .
p. 38 How, after a Union with the Divine Will, the inward Man
standeth immoveable, the while the outward Man is moved hither and
thither.. . . .
p. 39 How a Man may not attain so high before Death as not to be
moved or touched by outward Things.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
p. 40 On what wise we may came to be beyond and above all Custom,
Order, Law, Precepts and the like.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
iv
anonymousTheologia Germanica
p. 40 How we are not to cast off the Life of Christ, but practise
it diligently, and walk in it until Death.. . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
p. 41
How God is a true, simple, perfect Good, and how He is a Light and
a Reason and all Virtues, and how what is highest and best, that
is, God, ought to be most loved by us.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
p. 43 How when a Man is made truly Godlike, his Love is pure and
unmixed, and he loveth all Creatures, and doth his best for them..
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
p. 43
How that if a Man will attain to that which is best, he must
forswear his own Will; and he who helpeth a Man to his own Will
helpeth him to the worst Thing he can.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
p. 44 How there is deep and true Humility and Poorness of Spirit in
a Man who is 'made a Partaker of the Divine Nature.'. . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
p. 45 How nothing is contrary to God but Sin only; and what Sin is
in Kind and A c t . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
p. 46
How in God, as God, there can neither be Grief, Sorrow,
Displeasure, nor the like, but how it is otherwise in a Man who is
'made a Partaker of the Divine Nature.'. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
p. 46
How we are to put on the Life of Christ from Love, and not for the
sake of Reward, and how we must never grow careless concerning it,
or cast it off.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
p. 47
How God will have Order, Custom, Measure, and the like in the
Creature, seeing that He cannot have them without the Creature, and
of four sorts of Men who are concerned with this Order, Law, and
Custom.. . . . . . .
p. 48A good Account of the False Light and its Kind.. . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . .
p. 51
Now that he is to be called, and is truly, a Partaker of the Divine
Nature, who is illuminated with the Divine Light, and inflamed with
Eternal Love, and how Light and Knowledge are worth nothing without
Love.. . . . . . .
p. 52 A Question: whether we can know God and not love Him, and how
there are two kinds of Light and Love -- a true and a false.. . . .
. . . . . . . . .
p. 53
Whereby we may know a Man who is made a partaker of the divine
Nature, and what belongeth unto him; and further, what is the token
of a False Light, and a False Free-Thinker.. . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
p. 55
How nothing is contrary to God but Self-will and how he who seeketh
his own Good for his own sake, findeth it not; and how a Man of
himself neither knoweth nor can do any good Thing.. . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
p. 56
How that where there is a Christian Life, Christ dwelleth, and how
Christ's Life is the best and most admirable Life that ever hath
been or can be.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
p. 57 How entire Satisfaction and true Rest are to be found in God
alone, and not in any Creature; and how he who Will be obedient
unto God, must also
v
anonymousTheologia Germanica
be obedient to the Creatures, with all Quietness, and he who would
love God, must love all Things in One.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . .
p. 58 A Question: Whether, if we ought to love all Things, we ought
to love Sin a lso?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
p. 58 How we must believe certain Things of God's Truth beforehand,
ere we can come to a true Knowledge and Experience thereof.. . . .
. . . . . . .
p. 59 Of Self-will, and how Lucifer and Adam fell away from God
through Self-will.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
p. 59 How this present Time is a Paradise and outer Court of
Heaven, and how therein there is only one Tree forbidden, that is,
Self-will.. . . . . . . . . . .
p. 60 Wherefore God hath created Self-will, seeing that it is so
contrary to Him.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
p. 62
How we must take those two Sayings of Christ: 'No Man cometh unto
the Father, but by Me,' and 'No Man cometh unto Me, except the
Father which hath sent Me draw him.'. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
p. 63 Considereth that other saying of Christ, 'No Man can come
unto Me, except the Father, which hath sent Me, draw him.'. . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
p. 65
How a Man shall not seek his own, either in Things spiritual or
natural but the Honour of God only; and how he must enter in by the
right Door, to wit, by Christ, into Eternal Life.. . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
p. 68Indexes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 68Index of Scripture References.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
vi
anonymousTheologia Germanica
Theologia Germanica
Which setteth forth many fair Lineaments of divine Truth, and saith
very lofty and
lovely things touching a perfect life
With a Preface by the Rev. Charles Kingsley Rector of Eversley, and
a Letter to the Translator by the
Chevalier Bunsen, D.D., D.C.L., etc.
First published as a volume of the Golden Treasury Series in
1874. New Edition 1893
Reprinted 1901, 1907
Scanned from the 1893 Golden Treasury Series edition by John H.
Richards (jhr@elidor.demon.co.uk), March 1995
Introductory material scanned from the 1907 reprint by Harry
Plantinga (hplantin@calvin.edu), 1996
This electronic text is in the public domain
This work was
discovered and published in 1516 by Martin Luther, who said of it
that “Next
anonymousTheologica Germanica
STRONG Son of God, Immortal Love, Whom we, that have not seen Thy
face, By faith, and faith alone embrace,
Believing where we cannot prove.
*
*
*
*
*
Thou seemest human and divine, The highest, holiest manhood Thou;
Our wills are ours, we know not how,
Our wills are ours to make them Thine.
*
*
*
*
*
O Living Will that shalt endure, When all that seems shall suffer
shock Rise in the spiritual Rock,
Flow through our deeds and make them pure.
*
*
*
*
*
That we may lift, from out the dust, A voice as unto Him that
hears, A cry above the conquered years,
To one that with us works, and trust
*
*
*
*
*
With faith that comes of self-control The truths that never can be
proved, Until we close with all we loved
find all we flow from, soul in soul.
TENNYSON.
PREFACE
TO those who really hunger and thirst after righteousness;
and who therefore long to know what righteousness is, that they may
copy it: To those who long to be freed, not merely from the
punishment of sin after they die, but from sin itself while they
live on earth; and who therefore wish to know what sin is, that
they may avoid it: To those who wish to be really justified by
faith, by being made just persons by faith; and who cannot satisfy
either their consciences or reasons by fancying that God looks on
them as right, when they know themselves to be wrong, or that the
God of truth will stoop to fictions (miscalled forensic) which
would be considered false and unjust in any human court of law: To
those who cannot help trusting that union with Christ must be
something real and substantial, and not merely a metaphor, and a
flower of rhetoric: To those, lastly, who cannot help seeing that
the doctrine of Christ in every man, as the Indwelling Word of God,
The Light who lights every one who comes into the world, is no
peculiar tenet of the Quakers, but one which runs through the whole
of the Old and New Testaments, and without which they would both be
unintelligible, just as the same doctrine runs through the whole
history of the Early Church for the first two centuries, and is the
only explanation ofthem;
To all these this noble little book will recommend itself; and may
God bless the reading of it to them, and to all others no
less.
As for its orthodoxy; to “evangelical” Christians Martin Luther’s
own words ought to be sufficient warrant. For he has said that he
owed more to this, than to any other book, saving the Bible and
Saint Augustine. Those, on the other hand, to whom Luther’s name
does not seem a sufficient guarantee, must recollect, that the
Author of this book was a knight of the Teutonic order; one who
considered himself, and was considered, as far as we know, by his
contemporaries, an orthodox member of the Latin Church; that his
friends and disciples were principally monks exercising a great
influence in the Catholic Church of their days; that one of their
leaders was appointed by Pope John XXII. Nuncio and overseer of the
Dominican order in Germany; and that during the hundred and seventy
years which elapsed between the writing of this book and the
Reformation, it incurred no ecclesiastical censure whatsoever, in
generations which were but too fond of making men offenders for a
word.
Not that I agree with all which is to be found in this book. It is
for its noble views of righteousness and of sin that I honour it,
and rejoice at seeing it published in English, now for the first
time from an edition based on the perfect manuscript. But even in
those points in which I should like to see it altered, I am well
aware that there are strong authorities against me. The very
expression, for instance, which most startles me, “vergottet,”
deified or made divine, is used, word for word, both by Saint
Athanase and Saint Augustine, the former of whom has said: “He
became man, that we might be made God;”1 and the latter, “He called
men Gods, as being deified by His grace, not as born of His
substance.”2 There are many passages, moreover, in the Epistles of
the Apostles, which, if we paraphrase them at all, we can hardly
paraphrase in weaker words. It seems
1 Ατς πηνθρπησεν να μες θεοποιηθμεν .—Athan. Orat. de Incarn.
Verbi, tom. I. page. 108. 2 “Homines dixit Deos, ex gradia sua
deificatos; non de substantia sua natos,”—Aug. in Psalm xlix. (Ed.
Bened. tom. iv.
page 414.)
to me safer and wiser to cling to the letter of Scripture: but God
forbid that I should wish to make such a man as the Author of the
Theologia Germanica an offender for a word!
One point more may be worthy of remark. In many obscure passages of
this book, words are used, both by the Author and by the
Translator, in their strict, original, and scientific meaning, as
they are used in the Creeds, and not in that meaning which has of
late crept into our very pulpits, under the influence of Locke’s
philosophy. When, for instance, it is said that God is the
Substance of all things; this expression, in the vulgar Lockite
sense of substance, would mean that God is the matter or stuff of
which all things are made; which would be the grossest Pantheism:
but “Substance” in the true and ancient meaning of the word, as it
appears in the Athanasian Creed, signifies the very opposite;
namely, that which stands under the appearance and the matter; that
by virtue of which a thing has its form, its life, its real
existence, as far as it may have any; and thus in asserting that
God is the substance of all things, this book means that everything
(except sin, which is no thing, but the disease and fall of a
thing) is a thought of God.
So again with Eternity. It will be found in this book to mean not
merely some future endless duration, but that ever-present moral
world, governed by ever-living and absolutely necessary laws, in
which we and all spirits are now; and in which we should be
equally, whether time and space, extension and duration, and the
whole material universe to which they belong, became nothing this
moment, or lasted endlessly.
I think it necessary to give these cautions, because by the light
of Locke’s philosophy, little or nothing will be discerned in this
book, and what little is discerned will probably be utterly
misunderstood. If any man wishes to see clearly what is herein
written, let him try to forget all popular modern dogmas and
systems, all popular philosophies (falsely so called), and be true
to the letter of his Bible, and to the instincts which the
Indwelling Word of God was wont to awaken in his heart, while he
was yet a little unsophisticated child; and then let him be sure
that he will find in this book germs of wider and deeper wisdom
than its good author ever dreamed of; and that those great
spiritual laws, which the Author only applies, and that often
inconsistently, to an ascetic and passively contemplative life,
will hold just as good in the family, in the market, in the senate,
in the study, ay, in the battlefield itself; and teach him the way
to lead, in whatsoever station of life he may be placed, a truly
manlike, because a truly Christlike and Godlike, life.
CHARLES KINGSLEY.
BY THE TRANSLATOR
THE Treatise before us was discovered by Luther, who first
brought it into notice by an Edition of it which he published in
1516. A Second Edition, which came out two years later, he
introduced with the following Preface:—
“We read that St. Paul, though he was of a weak and contemptible
presence, yet wrote weighty and powerful letters, and he boasts of
himself that his ‘speech is not with enticing words of man’s
device,’ but ‘full of the riches of all knowledge and wisdom.’ And
if we consider the wondrous ways of God, it is clear, that He hath
never chosen mighty and eloquent preachers to speak His word, but
as it is written: ‘Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings hast
thou perfected praise,’ Ps. 8:2. And again, ‘For wisdom opened the
mouth of the dumb, and made the tongues of them that cannot speak
eloquent,’ Wisdom 10:21. Again, He blameth such as are high-minded
and are offended at these simple ones. Consilium inopis, etc. ‘Ye
have made a mock at the counsel of the poor, because he putteth his
trust in the Lord,’ Ps. 14:6.
“This I say because I will have every one warned who readeth this
little book, that he should not take offence, to his own hurt, at
its bad German, or its crabbed and uncouth words. For this noble
book, though it be poor and rude in words, is so much the richer
and more precious in knowledge and divine wisdom. And I will say,
though it be boasting of myself and ‘I speak as a fool,’ that next
to the Bible and St. Augustine, no book hath ever come into my
hands, whence I have learnt, or would wish to learn more of what
God, and Christ, and man and all things are; and now I first find
the truth of what certain of the learned have said in scorn of us
theologians of Wittemberg, that we would be thought to put forward
new things, as though there had never been men elsewhere and before
our time. Yea, verily, there have been men, but God’s wrath,
provoked by our sins, hath not judged us worthy to see and hear
them; for it is well known that for a long time past such things
have not been treated of in our universities; nay, it has gone so
far, that the Holy Word of God is not only laid on the shelf, but
is almost mouldered away with dust and moths. Let as many as will,
read this little book, and then say whether Theology is a new or an
old thing among us; for this book is not new. But if they say as
before, that we are but German theologians, we will not deny it. I
thank God, that I have heard and found my God in the German tongue,
as neither I nor they have yet found Him in the Latin, Greek, or
Hebrew tongue. God grant that this book may be spread abroad, then
we shall find that the German theologians are without doubt the
best theologians.
(Signed, without date,)
“Dr. MARTIN LUTHER,
AUGUSTINIAN of Wittemberg. These words of Luther will
probably be considered to form a sufficient justification for
an
attempt to present the Theologia Germanica in an English dress.
When Luther sent it forth, its effort to revive the consciousness
of spiritual life was received with enthusiasm by his
fellow-countrymen, in whom that life was then breaking with
volcanic energy through the clods of formalism and
5
hypocrisy, with which the Romish Church had sought to stifle its
fires. No fewer than seventeen editions of the work appeared during
the lifetime of Luther. Up to the present day, it has continued to
be a favourite handbook of devotion in Germany, where it has passed
through certainly as many as sixty Editions, and it has also been
widely circulated in France and the Netherlands, by means of Latin,
French, and Flemish translations.
To the question, who was the author of a book which has exerted so
great an influence? no answer can be given, all the various
endeavours to discover him having proved fruitless. Till within the
last few years, Luther was our sole authority for the text of the
work, but, about 1850, a manuscript of it was discovered at
Wurtzburg, by Professor Reuss, the librarian of the University
there, which has since been published verbatim by Professor
Pfeiffer of Prague. This Manuscript dates from 1497; consequently
it is somewhat older than Luther’s time, and it also contains some
passages not found in his editions. As, upon careful comparison, it
seemed to the translator indisputably superior to the best modern
editions based upon Luther’s, it has been selected as the
groundwork of the present translation, merely correcting from the
former, one or two passages which appeared to contain errors of the
press, or more likely of the transcriber’s pen. The passages not
found in Luther’s edition are here enclosed between brackets.
As has been stated, the author of the Theologia Germanica
isunknown; but it is evident from his whole cast of thought, as
well as from a Preface attached to the Wurtzburg Manuscript, that
he belonged to a class of men who sprang up in Southern Germany at
the beginning of the fourteenth century, and who were distinguished
for their earnest piety and their practical belief in the presence
of the Spirit of God with all Christians, laity as well as
clergy.
These men had fallen upon evil times. Their age was not indeed one
of those periods in which the vigour of the nobler powers of the
soul is enfeebled by the abundance of material prosperity and
physical enjoyment, nor yet one of those in which they are utterly
crushed out under the hoof of oppression and misery; but it was an
age in which conflicting elements were wildly struggling for the
mastery. The highest spiritual and temporal authorities were at
deadly strife with each other and among themselves; and in their
contests, there were few provinces or towns that did not repeatedly
suffer the horrors of war. The desolation caused by its ravages was
however speedily repaired during the intervals of peace, by the
extraordinary energy which the German nation displayed in that
bloom of its manhood; so that times of deep misery and great
prosperity rapidly alternated with each other. But on the whole,
during the first half of this century, the sense of the calamities,
which were continually recurring, predominated over the
recollection of the calmer years, which were barely sufficient to
allow breathing time between the successive waves that threatened
to overwhelm social order and happiness.
The unquestioning faith and honest enthusiasm which had prompted
the Crusades, no longer burnt with the same fierce ardour, for the
unhappy issue of those sacred enterprises, and the scandalous
worldly ambition of the heads of the Church, had moderated its
fervour and saddened the hearts of true believers. Yet the one
Catholic, Christian creed still held an undivided and very real
sovereignty over men’s minds, and the supremacy of the Church in
things spiritual was never questioned, though many were beginning
to feel that it was needful for the State to have an independent
authority in things temporal, and the question was warmly agitated
how much of the spiritual authority resided in the Pope and how
much in the bishops and doctors of the Church. But in whichever way
the dispute between these rival claims might be adjusted, the
reverence for the office of the clergy remained unimpaired. The
case was very different with the reverence for their
6
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persons, which had fallen to a very low ebb, owing to the
worldliness and immorality of their lives. This again was much
encouraged by the conduct of the Popes, who, in their zeal to
establish worldly dominion, made ecclesiastical appointments rather
with a view to gain political adherents, or to acquire wealth by
the sale of benefices, than with a regard to the fitness of the men
selected, or the welfare of the people committed to their
charge.
On the whole, it was an age of faith, though by no means of a
blind, unreasoning taking things for granted. On the contrary, the
evidences of extreme activity of mind meet us on every hand, in the
monuments of its literature, architecture, and invention. A few
facts strikingly illustrate the divergent tendencies of thought and
public opinion. Thus we may remember, how it was currently reported
that the profligate Pope Boniface VIII. was privately an
unbeliever, even deriding the idea of the immortality of the soul,
at the very time when he was maintaining against Philip the Fair,
the right of the Pope to sit, as Christ’s representative, in
judgment on the living and the dead, and to take the sword of
temporal power out of the hands of those who misused it.3 Whether
this accusation was true or not, it is a remarkable sign of the
times that it should have been widely believed.
Some years later, and when the increased corruptness of the clergy,
after the removal of the Papal Court to Avignon, provoked still
louder complaints, we see the religious and patriotic Emperor,
Louis IV., accusing John XXII. of heresy, in a public assembly held
in the square of St. Peter’s at Rome, and setting up another Pope
“in order to please the Roman people.” But though the new Pope was
every way fitted, by his unblemished character and ascetic manners,
to gain a hold on public esteem, we see that the Emperor could not
maintain him against the legitimately elected Pope, who, from his
seat at Avignon, had power to harass the Emperor so greatly with
his interdicts, that the latter, finding all efforts at
conciliation fruitless, would have bought peace by unconditional
submission, had not the Estates of the Empire refused to yield to
such humiliation. Yet we find this very Pope obliged to yield and
retract his opinions on a point of dogmatic theology. He had in a
certain treatise propounded the opinion that the souls of the pious
would not be admitted to the immediate vision of the Deity until
after the day of judgment. The King of France, in 1333, called an
assembly of Prelates and theologians at his palace at Vincennes,
where he invited them to discuss before him the two questions,
whether the souls of departed saints would be admitted to an
immediate vision of the Deity before the resurrection; and whether,
if so, their vision would be of the same or of a different kind
after the Judgment Day? The theological faculty having come to
conclusions differing in some respects from those of the Pope, the
King threatened the latter with the stake as a heretic, unless he
retracted; and John XXII. issued a bull, declaring that what he had
said or written, ought only to be received in so far as it agreed
with the Catholic Faith, the Church and Holy Scripture. No
circumstance, perhaps, offers a more remarkable spectacle to us in
its contrast with the spirit of our own times. At the present
moment, when the Pope could not sit for a day in safety on his
temporal throne without the defence of French or Austrian bayonets,
we can scarcely conceive an Emperor of France or Austria taking
upon himself to convene an assembly of Catholic theologians, and
the latter pronouncing a censure on the dogmas propounded by the
Head of the Church! It would be hard to say whether the Sovereigns
of the present day would be more amused
3 Neander’s “Kirchengeschichte,” Band 6, S. 15, 20. This work and
Schmitz’s “Johannes Tauler von Strasburg,” are the authorities for
most of the facts here mentioned.
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by the absurdity of devoting their time to such discussions, or the
consciences of good Catholics more shocked at the presumption of
such a verdict.
Still it must not be forgotten that the importance of religious
affairs in that age must not be ascribed too exclusively to
earnestness about religion itself, for the ecclesiastical interest
predominated over the purely religious. The Pope and the Emperor
represented the two great antagonistic powers, spiritual and
temporal, the rivalry between which absorbed into itself all the
political and social questions that could then be agitated. The
question of allegiance to the Pope or the Emperor was like the
contest between royalism and republicanism; the Ghibelline called
himself a patriot, and was called by his adversary, the Guelf, a
worldly man or even an infidel, while he retorted by calling the
Guelf a betrayer of his country, and an enemy of national
liberties.
We cannot help seeing, however, that in those days both princes and
people, wicked as their lives often were, did really believe in the
Christian religion, and that while much of the mythological and
much of the formalistic element mingled in their zeal for outward
observances, there was also much thoroughly sincere enthusiasm
among them. But both the two great powers oppressed the people,
which looked alternately to the one side or the other for
emancipation from the particular grievances felt to be most galling
at any given moment or place. In the frightful moral and physical
condition of society, it was no wonder that a despair of Providence
should have begun to attack some minds, which led to materialistic
scepticism, while others sought for help on the path of wild
speculation. The latter appears to have been the case with the
Beghards or “Brothers and Sisters of the Free Spirit,” who
attempted to institute a reform by withdrawing the people
altogether from the influence of the clergy, but whose followers
after a time too often fell into the vices of the priests from whom
they had separated themselves. In 1317, we find the Bishop of
Ochsenstein complaining that Alsace was filled with these Beghards,
who appear to have been a kind of antinomian pantheists, teaching
that the Spirit is bound by no law, and annihilating the
distinction between the Creator and the creature. Both in their
excellences and defects they remind us of the modern “German
Catholics,” and of some, too, of the recent Protestant schools in
Germany. There seems to have been no party of professed
unbelievers, but that some individuals were such in word as well as
deed, appears from what Ruysbroch of Brussels,4 (1300-1330) says of
those “who live in mortal sin, not troubling themselves about God
or His grace, but thinking virtue sheer nonsense, and the spiritual
life hypocrisy or delusion; and hearing with disgust all mention of
God or virtue, for they are persuaded that there is no such thing
as God, or Heaven, or Hell; for they acknowledge nothing but what
is palpable to the senses.”
The early part of the fourteenth century saw Germany divided for
nine years between the rival claims of two Emperors, Frederick of
Austria, supported by Pope John XXII. and a faction in Germany, and
Louis of Bavaria, whose cause was espoused by a majority of the
princes of the Empire, as that of the defender of the dignity and
independence of the State, and the champion of reform within the
Church. The death of Frederick, in 1322, left Louis the undisputed
Emperor, as far as nearly all his subjects were concerned, and he
would fain have purchased peace with the Pope on any reasonable
terms, that he might apply himself to the internal improvement of
his dominions; but John XXII. was implacable, and continued to wage
against him and his adherents a deadly warfare, not closed until
his successor Charles IV. submitted to all the papal demands, and
to every indignity imposed upon him.
4 As quoted by Neander. Kirchengeschichte, B. 6, S. 769.
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anonymousTheologica Germanica
One of the most fearful consequences of the enmity between John
XXII. and Louis of Bavaria, to the unfortunate subjects of the
latter, was the Interdict under which his dominions were laid in
1324, and from which some places, distinguished for their loyalty
to the Emperor, were not relieved for six-and-twenty years. Louis,
indeed, desired his subjects to pay no regard to the bull of
excommunication, and most of the laity, especially of the larger
towns, would gladly have obeyed him in spite of the Pope; but the
greater part of the bishops and clergy held with their spiritual
head, and thus the inhabitants of Strasburg, Nuremberg, and other
cities, where the civil authorities sided with the Emperor, and the
clergy with the Pope, were left year after year without any
religious privileges; for public worship ceased, and all the
business of life went on without the benedictions of the Church, no
rite being allowed but baptism and extreme unction.
After this had lasted sixteen years, the Emperor, wishing to
relieve the anguished consciences of his people, issued, in
conjunction with the Princes of the Empire, a great manifesto to
all Christendom, refuting the Pope’s accusations against him,
maintaining that he who had been legally chosen by the Electors
was, in virtue thereof, the rightful Emperor, and had received his
dignity from God, and proclaiming that all who denied this were
guilty of high treason; that therefore none should be allowed any
longer to observe the Interdict, and all who should continue to do
so, whether communities or individuals, should be deprived of every
civil and ecclesiastical right and privilege. This courageous edict
found a response in the heart of the nation, and public opinion
continually declared itself more strongly on the side of the
Emperor. Yet on the whole it rather increased the general anarchy;
for in many places the priests and monks were steadfast in their
allegiance to the Pope, and, refusing to administer public service,
were altogether banished from the towns, and the churches and
convents closed. In Strasburg, for instance, where the regular
clergy had long since ceased to perform religious rites, the
Dominicans and Franciscans had continued to preach and perform
mass; but now they too, frightened by the Edict, which placed them
in direct opposition to the Pope, dared no longer to disregard the
renewed sentence of excommunication hanging over them, and refusing
to read mass, were expelled by the Town Council. Many of these
banished clergy wandered about in great distress, with difficulty
finding refuge among the scattered rural population, and the
sufferings they endured proved the sincerity of their conscientious
scruples. Some few, either from worldly motives, or out of pity for
the people, remained at their posts. The former indeed throve by
the miseries of their fellow-creatures, driving a usurious trade in
the famine of spiritual consolation; for it is upon record, that in
time of pestilence, the price of shrift has been as much as sixty
florins!
The spectacle of such discord between the clergy and the laity was
something unspeakably shocking to the Christian world in that age,
and the energetic proceedings of the magistracy must have utterly
staggered the faith of many. Of all the events that were stirring
up men’s passions and energies, none was more calculated to move
their souls to the very centre, than to find themselves compelled
to stand up in arms against those whom they had been wont to bow
down before, and to reverence as the source of those spiritual
blessings, for the sake of which they were now driven in
desperation to take this awful step.
To these political and religious dissensions were added, in process
of time, other miseries. After it had been preceded by earthquakes,
hurricanes and famine, the Black Death broke out, spreading terror
and desolation through Southern Europe. Men saw in these frightful
calamities the judgments of God, but looked in vain for any to show
them a way of deliverance and escape. Some believed that the last
day was approaching; some, remembering an old prophecy, looked with
hope for the
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return of the Great Emperor Frederick II. to restore justice and
peace in the world, to punish the wicked clergy, and help the poor
and oppressed flock to their rights. Others traversed the country
in processions, scourging themselves and praying with a loud voice,
in order to atone for their sins and appease God’s anger, and
inveighing against man’s unbelief, which had called down God’s
wrath upon the earth; while some thought to do God service, by
wreaking vengeance on the people which had slain the Lord, and
thousands of wretched Jews perished in the flames kindled by
frantic terror. “All things worked together to deepen the sense of
the corruptness of the Church, to lead men’s thoughts onwards from
their physical to their spiritual wants, to awaken reflection on
the judgments of God, and to fix their eyes on the indications of
the future,’’5 so that John of Winterthur was probably not alone in
applying to his own times what St. Paul says of the perils of the
latter days.
In these chaotic times, and in the countries where the storms raged
most fiercely, there were some who sought that peace which could
not be found on earth, in intercourse with a higher world.
Destitute of help and comfort and guidance from man, they took
refuge in God, and finding that to them He had proved “a present
help ill time of trouble,” “as the shadow of a great rock in a
weary land,” they tried to bring their fellow-men to believe and
partake in a life raised above the troubles of this world. They
desired to show them that that Eternal life and enduring peace
which Christ had promised to His disciples, was, of a truth, to be
found by the Way which He had pointed out,—by a living union with
Him and the Father who had sent Him.
With this aim, like-minded men and women joined themselves
together, that by communion of heart and mutual counsel they might
strengthen each other in their common efforts to revive the
spiritual life of those around them. The Association they founded
was kept secret, lest through misconception of their principles,
they might fall under suspicion of heresy, and the Inquisition
should put a stop to their labours; but they desired to keep
themselves aloof from every thing that savoured of heresy or
disorder. On the contrary, they carefully observed all the precepts
of the Church, and carried their obedience so far that many of
their number were among the priests who were banished for obeying
the Pope, when the Emperor ordered them to disregard the Interdict.
They assumed the appellation of “Friends of God” (Gottesfreunde),
and, in the course of a few years, their associations extended
along the Rhine provinces from Basle to Cologne, and eastwards
through Swabia, Bavaria, and Franconia. Strasburg, Constance,
Nuremberg and Nordlingen were among their chief seats. Their
distinguishing doctrines were self-renunciation,—the complete
giving-up of self-will to the will of God;—the continuous activity
of the Spirit of God in all believers, and the intimate union
possible between God and man;—the worthlessness of all religion
based upon fear or the hope of reward;—and the essential equality
of the laity and clergy, though, for the sake of order and
discipline, the organization of the Church was necessary. They
often appealed to the declaration of Christ (John 15:15),
“Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not
what his lord doeth; but I have called you friends; for all things
that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you;” and
from this they probably derived their name of “Friends of God.”
Their mode of action was simply personal, for they made no attempt
to gain political and hierarchical power, but exerted all their
influence by means of preaching, writing and social intercourse.
The Association counted among its members priests, monks, and
laity, without distinction of rank or sex. Its leaders stood
likewise in close connection with several convents, especially
those of
5 Neander, Kircshengeschichte, B. 6, S. 728.
10
Engenthal, and Maria-Medingen near Nuremberg, presided over by the
sisters Christina and Margaret Ebner, much of whose correspondence
is still extant. Agnes, the widow of King Andrew of Hungary, and
various knights and burghers, are also named as belonging to
it.
Foremost among the leaders of this party should be mentioned the
celebrated Tauler, a Dominican monk of Strasburg, who spent his
life in preaching and teaching up and down the country from
Strasburg to Cologne, and whose influence is to this day active
among his countrymen by means of his admirable sermons, which are
still widely read. At the time of the Interdict he wrote a noble
appeal to the clergy not to forsake their flocks, maintaining that
if the Emperor had sinned, the blame lay with him only, not with
his wretched subjects, so that it was a crying shame to visit his
guilt upon the innocent people, but that their unjust oppression
would be recompensed to them by God hereafter. He acted up to his
own principles, and when the Black Death was raging in Strasburg,
where it carried off 16,000 victims, he was unwearied in his
efforts to administer aid and consolation to the sick and
dying.
Much of Tauler’s religious fervour and light he himself attributed
to the instructions of a layman, his friend. It is now known from
contemporary records that this was Nicholas of Basle, a citizen of
that Free town and a secret Waldensian. Little is known of his life
beyond the fact that he was intimately connected with many of the
heads of this party, and was resorted to by them for guidance and
help; for, being under suspicion of heresy, he had to conceal all
his movements from the Inquisition. He succeeded, however, in
carrying on his labours and eluding his enemies, until he reached
an advanced age; but at length, venturing alone and unprotected
into France, he was taken, and burnt at Vienne in 1382. Another
friend of Tauler’s, and like him an eloquent and powerful preacher,
whose sermons are still read with delight, was Henry Suso, a
Dominican monk, belonging to a knightly family in Swabia.
One of the leaders of the “Friends of God,” Nicholas of Strasburg,
was in 1326 appointed by John XXII. nuncio, with the oversight of
the Dominican order throughout Germany, and dedicated to that Pope
an Essay of great learning and ability, refuting the prevalent
interpretations of Scripture, which referred the coming of
Antichrist and the Judgment day to the immediate future. Thus we
see that the “Friends of God” were not confined to one political
party, and this likewise appears from the history of another
celebrated member of this sect, Henry of Nordlingen, a priest of
Constance, who, like Suso, was banished for his adherence to the
Pope. One of the most remarkable men of this sect was a layman and
married, Rulman Merswin, belonging to a high family at Strasburg.
He appears to have been led to a religious life by the influence of
Tauler, who was his confessor. He is the author of several mystical
works which, he says, he wrote “to do good to his fellow
creatures,” but he contributed perhaps still more largely to their
benefit by his activity in charitable works, for he established one
hospital and seems to have had the oversight of others also. He
likewise gave largely to churches and convents, but is best known
by having founded a house for the Knights of St. John in Strasburg.
The characteristic doctrines of the “Friends of God” have already
been indicated. That they should not have fallen into some
exaggerations was scarcely possible, but where they have done so,
it may generally be traced to the influence of the monastic life to
which most of them were dedicated, and to the perplexities of their
age.
The book before us was probably written somewhere about I350, since
it refers to Tauler as already well known. It was the practice of
the “Friends of God” to conceal their names as much as possible
when they wrote, lest a desire for fame should mingle with their
endeavours to be useful. This is probably the reason why we have no
indication of its authorship beyond a preface, which
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the Wurtzburg Manuscript possesses in common with that which was in
Luther’s hands, and from which it appears that the writer “was of
the Teutonic order, a priest and a warden in the house of the
Teutonic order in Frankfort.” A translation of this Preface is
prefixed to the present volume. Till the discovery of the Wurtzburg
Manuscript, it was supposed that this Preface was from Luther’s
hand, who merely embodied in it the tradition which he had received
from some source unknown to us; and hence, some, disregarding its
authority, have ascribed the Theologia Germanica to Tauler, whose
style it resembles so much that it might be taken for his work, but
for the reference to him already mentioned. Since, however, the
antiquity of the Preface is now proved, we must be content with the
information which it affords us, unless any further discoveries
among old manuscripts should throw fresh light upon the
subject.
Should this attempt to introduce the writings of the “Friends of
God” in England awaken an interest in them and their works, the
Translator proposes to follow up the present volume with an account
of Tauler and selections from his writings; believing that the
study of these German theologians, who were already called old in
Luther’s age, would furnish the best antidote to what of mischief
English readers may have derived from German theology, falsely so
called.
Manchester, February 1854.
77 Marina, St. Leonard’s-on-Sea,
11th May 1854.
MY DEAR FRIEND,
YOUR Letter and the proof-sheets of your Translation of the
Theologia Germanica, with Kingsley’s Preface and your Introduction,
were delivered to me yesterday, as I was leaving Carlton Terrace to
breathe once more, for a few days, the refreshing air of this
quiet, lovely place. You told me, at the time, that you had been
led to study Tauler and the Theologia Germanica by some
conversations which we had on their subjects in 1851, and you now
wish me to state to your readers, in a few lines, what place I
conceive this school of Germanic theology to hold in the general
development of Christian thought, and what appears to me to be the
bearing of this work in particular upon the present dangers and
prospects of Christianity, as well as upon the eternal interests of
religion in the heart of every man and woman.
In complying willingly with your request, I may begin by saying
that, with Luther, I rank this short treatise next to the Bible,
but, unlike him, should place it before rather than after St.
Augustine. That school of pious, learned, and profound men of which
this book is, as it were, the popular catechism, was the Germanic
counterpart of Romanic scholasticism, and more than the revival of
that Latin theology which produced so many eminent thinkers, from
Augustine, its father, to Thomas Aquinas, its last great genius,
whose death did not take place until after the birth of Dante, who
again was the contemporary of the Socrates of the Rhenish
school,—Meister Eckart, the Dominican.
The theology of this school was the first protest of the Germanic
mind against the Judaism and formalism of the Byzantine and
mediaeval Churches,—the hollowness of science to which
scholasticism had led, and the rottenness of society which a
pompous hierarchy strove in vain to conceal, but had not the power
nor the will to correct. Eckart and Tauler, his pupil, brought
religion home from fruitless speculation, and reasonings upon
imaginary or impossible suppositions, to man’s own heart and to the
understanding of the common people, as Socrates did the Greek
philosophy. There is both a remarkable analogy and a striking
contrast between the great Athenian and those Dominican friars.
Socrates did full justice to the deep ethical ideas embodied in the
established religion of his country and its venerated mysteries,
which he far preferred to the shallow philosophy of the sophists;
but he dissuaded his pupils from seeking an initiation into the
mysteries, or at least from resting their convictions and hopes
upon them, exhorting them to rely, not upon the oracles of Delphi,
but upon the oracle in their own bosom. The “Friends of God,” on
the other hand, believing (like Dante) most profoundly in the truth
of the Christian religion, on which the established Church of their
age, notwithstanding its corruptions, was essentially founded,
recommended submission to the ordinances of the church as a
wholesome preparatory discipline for many minds. Like the saint of
Athens, however, they spoke plain truth to the people. To their
disciples, and those who came to them for instruction, they
exhibited the whole depth of that real Christian philosophy, which
opens to the mind after all scholastic conventionalism has been
thrown away, and the soul listens to the response which Christ’s
Gospel and God’s creation find in a sincere
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heart and a self-sacrificing life;—a philosophy which, considered
merely as a speculation, is far more profound than any scholastic
system. But, in a style that was intelligible to all, they preached
that no fulfilment of rites and ceremonies, nor of so-called
religious duties,—in fact, no outward works, however meritorious,
can either give peace to man’s conscience, nor yet give him
strength to bear up against the temptations of prosperity and the
trials of adversity.
In following this course they brought the people back from hollow
profession and real despair, to the blessings of gospel religion,
while they opened to philosophic minds a new career of thought. By
teaching that man is justified by ’ faith, and by faith alone, they
prepared the popular intellectual element of the Reformation; by
teaching that this faith has its philosophy, as fully able to carry
conviction to the understanding, as faith is to give peace to the
troubled conscience, they paved the way for that spiritual
philosophy of the mind, of which Kant laid the foundation. But they
were not controversialists, as the Reformers of the sixteenth
century were driven to be by their position, and not men of science
exclusively, as the masters of modern philosophy in Germany were
and are. Although most of them friars, or laymen connected with the
religious orders of the time, they were men of the people and men
of action. They preached the saving faith to the people in
churches, in hospitals, in the streets and public places. In the
strength of this faith, Tauler, when he had been already for years
the universal object of admiration as a theologian and preacher
through all the free cities on the Rhine, from Basle to Cologne,
humbled himself, and remained silent for the space of two years,
after the mysterious layman had shown him the insufficiency of his
scholastic learning and preaching. In the strength of this faith,
he braved the Pope’s Interdict, and gave the consolations of
religion to the people of Strasburg, during the dreadful plague
which depopulated that flourishing city. For this faith, Eckart
suffered with patience slander and persecution, as formerly he had
borne with meekness, honours and praise. For this faith, Nicolaus
of Basle, who sat down as a humble stranger at Tauler’s feet to
become the instrument of his real enlightenment, died a martyr in
the flames. In this sense, the “Friends of God” were, like the
Apostles, men of the people and practical Christians, while as men
of thought, their ideas contributed powerfully to the great efforts
of the European nations in the sixteenth century.
Sin is selfishness: Godliness is unselfishness: A godly life is the
steadfast working out of inward freeness from self: To become thus
Godlike is the bringing back of man’s first nature. On this
last point,—man’s divine dignity and destiny,—Tauler speaks as
strongly as our author,
and almost as strongly as the Bible. Man is indeed to him God’s own
image. “As a sculptor,” he says somewhere, with a striking range of
mind for a monk of the fourteenth century, “is said to have
exclaimed indignantly on seeing a rude block of marble, ‘what a
godlike beauty thou hidest!’ thus God looks upon man in whom God’s
own image is hidden.” “We may begin,” he says in a kindred passage,
“by loving God in hope of reward, we may express ourselves
concerning Him in symbols (Bilder), but we must throw them all
away, and much more we must scorn all idea of
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reward, that we may love God only because He is the Supreme Good,
and contemplate His eternal nature as the real substance of our own
soul.”
But let no one imagine that these men, although doomed to
passiveness in many respects, thought a contemplative or monkish
life a condition of spiritual Christianity, and not rather a danger
to it. “If a man truly loves God,” says Tauler, “and has no will
but to do God’s will, the whole force of the river Rhine may run at
him and will not disturb him or break his peace; if we find outward
things a danger and disturbance, it comes from our appropriating to
ourselves what is God’s.” But Tauler, as well as our Author, uses
the strongest language to express his horror of Sin, man’s own
creation, and their view on this subject forms their great contrast
to the philosophers of the Spinozistic school. Among the Reformers,
Luther stands nearest to them, with respect to the great
fundamental points of theological teaching, but their intense dread
of Sin as a rebellion against God, is shared both by Luther and
Calvin. Among later theologians, Julius Muller, in his profound
Essay on Sin, and Richard Rothe, in his great work on Christian
Ethics, come nearest to them in depth of thought and ethical
earnestness, and the first of these eminent writers carries out, as
it appears to me, most consistently that fundamental truth of the
Theologia Germanica that there is no sin but Selfishness, and that
all Selfishness is sin.
Such appear to me to be the characteristics of our book and of
Tauler. I may be allowed to add, that this small but golden
Treatise has been now for almost forty years an unspeakable comfort
to me and to many Christian friends (most of whom have already
departed in peace), to whom I had the happiness of introducing it.
May it in your admirably faithful and lucid translation become a
real “book for the million” in England, a privilege which it
already shares in Germany with Tauler’s matchless Sermons, of which
I rejoice to hear that you are making a selection for publication.
May it become a blessing to many a longing Christian heart in that
dear country of yours, which I am on the point of leaving, after
many happy years of residence, but on which I can never look as a
strange land to me, any more than I shall ever consider myself as a
stranger in that home of old Teutonic liberty and energy, which I
have found to be also the home of practical Christianity and of
warm and faithful affection.
Bunsen.
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Theologia Germanica
CHAPTER I
Of that which is perfect and that which is in part, and how that
which is in part is done away, when that which is perfect is
come.
St. Paul saith, “When that which is perfect is come, then
that which is in part shall be done away.”6
Now mark what is “that which is perfect,” and “that which is in
part.” “That which is perfect” is a Being, who hath comprehended
and included all things in Himself
and His own Substance, and without whom, and beside whom, there is
no true Substance, and in whom all things have their Substance. For
He is the Substance of all things, and is in Himself unchangeable
and immoveable, and changeth and moveth all things else. But “that
which is in part,” or the Imperfect, is that which hath its source
in, or springeth from the Perfect; just as a brightness or a
visible appearance floweth out from the sun or a candle, and
appeareth to be somewhat, this or that. And it is called a
creature; and of all these “things which are in part,” none is the
Perfect. So also the Perfect is none of the things which are in
part. The things which are in part can be apprehended, known, and
expressed; but the Perfect cannot be apprehended, known, or
expressed by any creature as creature. Therefore we do not give a
name to the Perfect, for it is none of these. The creature as
creature cannot know nor apprehend it, name nor conceive it.
“Now when that which is Perfect is come, then that which is in part
shall be done away.” But when doth it come? I say, when as much as
may be, it is known, felt and tasted of the soul. For the lack
lieth altogether in us, and not in it. In like manner the sun
lighteth the whole world, and is as near to one as another, yet a
blind man seeth it not; but the fault thereof lieth in the blind
man, not in the sun. And like as the sun may not hide its
brightness, but must give light unto the earth (for heaven indeed
draweth its light and heat from another fountain), so also God, who
is the highest Good, willeth not to hide Himself from any,
wheresoever He findeth a devout soul, that is thoroughly purified
from all creatures. For in what measure we put off the creature, in
the same measure are we able to put on the Creator; neither more
nor less. For if mine eye is to see anything, it must be single, or
else be purified from all other things; and where heat and light
enter in, cold and darkness must needs depart; it cannot be
otherwise.
But one might say, “Now since the Perfect cannot be known nor
apprehended of any creature, but the soul is a creature, how can it
be known by the soul?” Answer: This is why we say, “by the soul as
a creature.” We mean it is impossible to the creature in virtue of
its creature-nature and qualities, that by which it saith “I” and
“myself.” For in whatsoever creature the Perfect shall be known,
therein creature-nature, qualities, the I, the Self and the like,
must all be lost and done away. This is the meaning of that saying
of St. Paul: “When that which is perfect is come” (that is, when it
is known), “then that which is in part” (to wit, creature-nature,
qualities, the I, the Self, the Mine) will be despised and counted
for nought. So long as we think much of these things, cleave to
them with love, joy, pleasure or desire, so long remaineth the
Perfect unknown to us.
6 1 Cor. 13:10.
CHAPTER II
Of what Sin is, and how we must not take unto ourselves any good
Thing, seeing that it belongeth unto the true Good alone.
CHAPTER III
How Man’s Fall and going astray must be amended as Adam’s Fall
was.
What else did Adam do but this same thing? It is said, it
was because Adam ate the apple that he was lost, or fell. I say, it
was because of his claiming something for his own, and because of
his I, Mine, Me, and the like. Had he eaten seven apples, and yet
never claimed anything for his own, he would not have fallen: but
as soon as he called something his own, he fell, and would have
fallen if he had never touched an apple. Behold! I have fallen a
hundred times more often and deeply, and gone a hundred times
farther astray than Adam; and not all mankind could mend his fall,
or bring him back from going astray. But how shall my fall be
amended? It must be healed as Adam’s fall was healed, and on the
self-same wise. By whom, and on what wise was that healing brought
to pass? Mark this: man could not without God, and God should not
without man. Wherefore God took human nature or manhood upon
Himself and was made man, and man was made divine. Thus the healing
was brought to pass. So also must my fall be healed. I cannot do
the work without God, and God may not or will not without me; for
if it shall be accomplished, in me, too, God must be
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CHAPTER IV
How Man, when he claimeth any good Thing for his own, falleth, and
toucheth God in His Honour.
CHAPTER V
How we are to take that Saying, that we must come to be without
Will, Wisdom, Love, Desire, Knowledge, and the like.
Certain men say that we ought to be without will, wisdom,
love, desire, knowledge, and the like. Hereby is not to be
understood that there is to be no knowledge in man, and that God is
not to be loved by him, nor desired and longed for, nor praised and
honoured; for that were a great loss, and man were like the beasts
and as the brutes that have no reason. But it meaneth that man’s
knowledge should be so clear and perfect that he should acknowledge
of a truth that in himself he neither hath nor can do any good
thing, and that none of his knowledge, wisdom and art, his will,
love and good works do come from himself, nor are of man, nor of
any creature, but that all these are of the eternal God, from whom
they all proceed. As Christ Himself saith, “Without Me, ye can do
nothing.”8 St.
7 Isaiah 42:8. 8 John 15:5.
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Paul saith also, “What hast thou that thou hast not received?”9 As
much as to say—nothing. “Now if thou didst receive it, why dost
thou glory as if thou hadst not received it?” Again he saith, “Not
that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of
ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God.”10
Now when a man duly perceiveth these things in himself, he and the
creature fall behind, and he doth not call anything his own, and
the less he taketh this knowledge unto himself, the more perfect
doth it become. So also is it with the will, and love and desire,
and the like. For the less we call these things our own, the more
perfect and noble and Godlike do they become, and the more we think
them our own, the baser and less pure and perfect do they
become.
Behold on this sort must we cast all things from us, and strip
ourselves of them; we must refrain from claiming anything for our
own. When we do this, we shall have the best, fullest, clearest and
noblest knowledge that a man can have, and also the noblest and
purest love, will and desire; for then these will be all of God
alone. It is much better that they should be God’s than the
creature’s. Now that I ascribe anything good to myself, as if I
were, or had done, or knew, or could perform any good thing, or
that it were mine, this is all of sin and folly. For if the truth
were rightly known by me, I should also know that I am not that
good thing and that it is not mine, nor of me, and that I do not
know it, and cannot do it, and the like. If this came to pass, I
should needs cease to call anything my own.
CHAPTER VI
How that which is best and noblest should also be loved above all
Things by us, merely because it is the best.
A Master called Boetius saith, “It is of sin that we do not
love that which is Best.” He hath spoken the truth. That which is
best should be the dearest of all things to us; and in our love of
it, neither helpfulness nor unhelpfulness, advantage nor injury,
gain nor loss, honour nor dishonour, praise nor blame, nor anything
of the kind should be regarded; but what is in truth the noblest
and best of all things, should be also the dearest of all things,
and that for no other cause than that it is the noblest and
best.
Hereby may a man order his life within and without. His outward
life: for among the creatures one is better than another, according
as the Eternal Good manifesteth itself and worketh more in one than
in another. Now that creature in which the Eternal Good most
manifesteth itself, shineth forth, worketh, is most known and
loved, is the best, and that wherein the Eternal Good is
least
9 1 Cor. 4:7. 10 2 Cor. 3:5.
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manifested is the least good of all creatures. Therefore when we
have to do with the creatures and hold converse with them, and take
note of their diverse qualities, the best creatures must always be
the dearest to us, and we must cleave to them, and unite ourselves
to them, above all to those which we attribute to God as belonging
to Him or divine, such as wisdom, truth, kindness, peace, love,
justice, and the like. Hereby shall we order our outward man, and
all that is contrary to these virtues we must eschew and flee
from.
CHAPTER VII
Of the Eyes of the Spirit wherewith Man looketh into Eternity and
into Time, and how the one is hindered of the other in its
Working.
Let us remember how it is written and said that the soul of
Christ had two eyes, a right and a left eye. In the beginning, when
the soul of Christ was created, she fixed her right eye upon
eternity and the Godhead, and remained in the full intuition and
enjoyment of the divine Essence and Eternal Perfection; and
continued thus unmoved and undisturbed by all the accidents and
travail, suffering, torment and pain that ever befell the outward
man. But with the left eye she beheld the creature and perceived
all things therein, and took note of the difference between the
creatures, which were better or worse, nobler or meaner; and
thereafter was the outward man of Christ ordered.
Thus the inner man of Christ, according to the right eye of His
soul, stood in the full exercise of His divine nature, in perfect
blessedness, joy and eternal peace. But the outward man and the
left eye of Christ’s soul, stood with Him in perfect suffering, in
all tribulation, affliction and travail; and this in such sort that
the inward and right eye remained unmoved, unhindered and untouched
by all the travail, suffering, grief and anguish that ever befell
the outward man. It hath been said that when Christ was bound to
the pillar and scourged, and when He hung upon the cross, according
to the outward man, yet His inner man, or soul according to the
right eye, stood in as full possession of divine joy and
blessedness as it did after His ascension, or as it doth now. In
like manner His outward man, or soul with the left eye, was never
hindered, disturbed or troubled by the inward eye in its
contemplation of the outward things that belonged to it.
Now the created soul of man hath also two eyes. The one is the
power of seeing into eternity, the other of seeing into time and
the creatures, of perceiving how they differ from each other as
afore-said, of giving life and needful things to the body, and
ordering and governing it for the best. But these two eyes of the
soul of man cannot both perform their work at once; but if the soul
shall see with the right eye into eternity, then the left eye must
close itself and refrain from working, and be as though it were
dead.
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CHAPTER VIII
How the Soul of Man, while it is yet in the Body, may obtain a
Foretaste of eternal Blessedness.
It hath been asked whether it be possible for the soul,
while it is yet in the body, to reach so high as to cast a glance
into eternity, and receive a foretaste of eternal life and eternal
blessedness. This is commonly denied; and truly so in a sense. For
it indeed cannot be so long as the soul is taking heed to the body,
and the things which minister and appertain thereto, and to time
and the creature, and is disturbed and troubled and distracted
thereby. For if the soul shall rise to such a state, she must be
quite pure, wholly stripped and bare of all images, and be entirely
separate from all creatures, and above all from herself. Now many
think this is not to be done and is impossible in this present
time. But St. Dionysius maintains that it is possible, as we find
from his words in his Epistle to Timothy, where he saith: “For the
beholding of the hidden things of God, shalt thou forsake sense and
the things of the flesh, and all that the senses can apprehend, and
all that reason of her own powers can bring forth, and all things
created and uncreated that reason is able to comprehend and know,
and shalt take thy stand upon an utter abandonment of thyself, and
as knowing none of the aforesaid things, and enter into union with
Him who is, and who is above all existence and all knowledge.” Now
if he did not hold this to be possible in this present time, why
should he teach it and enjoin it on us in this present time? But it
behoveth you to know that a master hath said on this passage of St.
Dionysius, that it is possible, and may happen to a man often, till
he become so accustomed to it, as to be able to look into eternity
whenever he will. For when a thing is at first very hard to a man
and strange, and seemingly quite impossible, if he put all his
strength and energy into it, and persevere therein, that will
afterward grow quite light and easy, which he at first thought
quite out of reach, seeing that it is of no use to begin any work,
unless it may be brought to a good end.
anonymousTheologica Germanica
CHAPTER IX
How it is better and more profitable for a Man that he should
perceive what God will do with him, or to what end He will make Use
of him, than if he knew all that Gad had ever wrought, or would
ever work through all the Creatures; and how
Blessedness lieth alone in God, and not in the Creatures, or in any
Works.
We should mark and know of a very truth that all manner of
virtue and goodness, and even that Eternal Good which is God
Himself, can never make a man virtuous, good, or happy, so long as
it is outside the soul; that is, so long as the man is holding
converse with outward things through his senses and reason, and
doth not withdraw into himself and learn to understand his own
life, who and what he is. The like is true of sin and evil. For all
manner of sin and wickedness can never make us evil, so long as it
is outside of us; that is, so long as we do not commit it, or do
not give consent to it.
Therefore although it be good and profitable that we should ask,
and learn and know, what good and holy men have wrought and
suffered, and how God hath dealt with them, and what He hath
wrought in and through them, yet it were a thousand times better
that we should in ourselves learn and perceive and understand, who
we are, how and what our own life is, what God is and is doing in
us, what He will have from us, and to what ends He will or will not
make use of us. For, of a truth, thoroughly to know oneself, is
above all art, for it is the highest art. If thou knowest thyself
well, thou art better and more praiseworthy before God, than if
thou didst not know thyself, but didst understand the course of the
heavens and of all the planets and stars, also the dispositions of
all mankind, also the nature of all beasts, and, in such matters,
hadst all the skill of all who are in heaven and on earth. For it
is said, there came a voice from heaven, saying, “Man, know
thyself.” Thus that proverb is still true, “Going out were never so
good, but staying at home were much better.”
Further, ye should learn that eternal blessedness lieth in one
thing alone, and in nought else. And if ever man or the soul is to
be made blessed, that one thing alone must be in the soul. Now some
might ask, “But what is that one thing?” I answer, it is Goodness,
or that which hath been made good; and yet neither this good nor
that, which we can name, or perceive or show; but it is all and
above all good things.
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CHAPTER X
How the perfect Men have no other Desire than that they may be to
the Eternal Goodness what His Hand is to a Man, and how they have
lost the Fear of Hell, and Hope of Heaven.
Now let us mark: Where men are enlightened with the true
light, they perceive that all which they might desire or choose, is
nothing to that which all creatures, as creatures, ever desired or
chose or knew, Therefore they renounce all desire and choice, and
commit and commend themselves and all things to the Eternal
Goodness. Nevertheless, there remaineth in them a desire to go
forward and get nearer to the Eternal Goodness; that is, to come to
a clearer knowledge, and warmer love, and more comfortable
assurance, and perfect obedience and subjection; so that every
enlightened man could say: “I would fain be to the Eternal
Goodness, what His own hand is to a man.” And he feareth always
that he is not enough so, and longeth for the salvation of all men.
And such men do not call this longing their own, nor take it unto
themselves, for they know well that this desire is not of man, but
of the Eternal Goodness; for whatsoever is good shall no one take
unto himself as his own, seeing that it belongeth to the Eternal
Goodness, only.
CHAPTER XI
How a righteous Man in this present Time is brought into hell, and
there cannot be comforted, and how he is taken out of Hell and
carried into Heaven, and there cannot be troubled.
Christ’s soul must needs descend into hell, before it
ascended into heaven. So must also the soul of man. But mark ye in
what manner this cometh to pass. When a man truly Perceiveth
and
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considereth himself, who and what he is, and findeth himself
utterly vile and wicked, and unworthy of all the comfort and
kindness that he hath ever received from God, or from the
creatures, he falleth into such a deep abasement and despising of
himself, that he thinketh himself unworthy that the earth should
bear him, and it seemeth to him reasonable that all creatures in
heaven and earth should rise up against him and avenge their
Creator on him, and should punish and torment him; and that he were
unworthy even of that. And it seemeth to him that he shall be
eternally lost and damned, and a footstool to all the devils in
hell, and that this is right and just and all too little compared
to his sins which he so often and in so many ways hath committed
against God his Creator. And therefore also he will not and dare
not desire any consolation or release, either from God or from any
creature that is in heaven or on earth; but he is willing to be
unconsoled and unreleased, and he doth not grieve over his
condemnation and sufferings; for they are right and just, and not
contrary to God, but according to the will of God. Therefore they
are right in his eyes, and he hath nothing to say against them.
Nothing grieveth him but his own guilt and wickedness; for that is
not right and is contrary to God, and for that cause he is grieved
and troubled in spirit.
This is what is meant by true repentance for sin. And he who in
this Present time entereth into this hell, entereth afterward into
the Kingdom of Heaven, and obtaineth a foretaste there of which
excelleth all the delight and joy which he ever hath had or could
have in this present time from temporal things. But whilst a man is
thus in hell, none may console him, neither God nor the creature,
as it is written, “In hell there is no redemption.”11 Of this state
hath one said, “Let me perish, let me die! I live without hope;
from within and from without I am condemned, let no one pray that I
may be released.”
Now God hath not forsaken a man in this hell, but He is laying His
hand upon him, that the man may not desire nor regard anything but
the Eternal Good only, and may come to know that that is so noble
and passing good, that none can search out or express its bliss,
consolation and joy, peace, rest and satisfaction. And then, when
the man neither careth for, nor seeketh, nor desireth, anything but
the Eternal Good alone, and seeketh not himself, nor his own
things, but the honour of God only, he is made a partaker of all
manner of joy, bliss, peace, rest and consolation, and so the man
is henceforth in the Kingdom of Heaven.
For this hell shall pass away, But Heaven shall endure
for aye.
Also let a man mark, when he is in this hell, nothing may console
him; and he cannot believe that he shall ever be released or
comforted. But when he is in heaven, nothing can trouble him; he
believeth also that none will ever be able to offend or trouble
him, albeit it is indeed true, that after this hell he may be
comforted and released, and after this heaven he may be troubled
and left without consolation.
Again: this hell and this heaven come about a man in such sort,
that he knoweth not whence they come; and whether they come to him,
or depart from him, he can of himself do nothing towards
11 The writer is probably alluding to Ps. 49:8.
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CHAPTER XII
Touching that true inward Peace, which Christ left to His Disciples
at the last.
Many say they have no peace nor rest, but so many crosses
and trials, afflictions and sorrows, that they know not how they
shall ever get through them. Now he who in truth will perceive and
take note, perceiveth clearly, that true peace and rest lie not in
outward things; for if it were so, the Evil Spirit also would have
peace when things go according to his will which is nowise the
case; for the prophet declareth, “There is no peace, saith my God,
to the wicked.”13 And therefore we must consider and see what is
that peace which Christ left to His disciples at the last, when He
said: “My peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you.”14 We
may perceive that in these words Christ did not mean a bodily and
outward peace; for His beloved disciples, with all His friends and
followers, have ever suffered, from the beginning, great
affliction, persecution, nay, often martyrdom, as Christ Himself
said: “In this world ye shall have tribulation.”15 But Christ meant
that true, inward peace of the heart, which beginneth here, and
endureth for ever hereafter. Therefore He said: “Not as the world
giveth,” for the world is false, and deceiveth in her gifts. She
promiseth much, and performeth little. Moreover there liveth no man
on earth who may always have rest and peace without troubles and
crosses, with whom things always go according to his will; there is
always something to be suffered here, turn which way you will. And
as soon as you are quit of one assault, perhaps two come in its
place. Wherefore yield thyself willingly to them, and seek only
that true peace of the heart, which none can take away from thee,
that thou mayest overcome all assaults.
Thus then, Christ meant that inward peace which can break through
all assaults and crosses of oppression, suffering, misery,
humiliation and what more there may be of the like, so that a man
may be joyful and patient therein, like the beloved disciples and
followers of Christ. Now he who will in love give his whole
diligence and might thereto, will verily come to know that true
eternal peace which is God Himself, as far as it is possible to a
creature; insomuch that what was bitter to
12 John 3:8. 13 Isaiah 57:21. 14 John 14:27. 15 John 16:33.
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How a Man may cast aside Images too soon.
CHAPTER XIV
Of three Stages by which a Man is led upwards till he attaineth
true Perfection.
Now be assured that no one can be enlightened unless he be
first cleansed or purified and stripped. So also, no one can be
united with God unless he be first enlightened. Thus there are
three stages: first, the purification; secondly, the enlightening;
thirdly, the union. The purification concerneth those who are
beginning or repenting, and is brought to pass in a threefold wise;
by contrition and sorrow for sin, by full confession, by hearty
amendment. The enlightening belongeth to such as are growing, and
also taketh place in three ways: to wit, by the eschewal of sin, by
the practice of virtue and good works, and by the willing endurance
of all manner of temptation and trials. The union belongeth to such
as are perfect, and also is brought to pass in three ways: to wit,
by pureness and singleness of heart, by love, and by the
contemplation of God, the Creator of all things.
16 Here Luther’s Edition has the following passage instead of the
remainder of this chapter: “Therefore we should at all times give
diligent heed to the works of God and His commandments, movings,
and admonitions, and not to the works or commandments or
admonitions of men.”
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CHAPTER XV
How all Men are dead in Adam and are made alive again in Christ,
and of true Obedience and Disobedience.
All that in Adam fell and died, was raised again and made
alive in Christ, and all that rose up and was made alive in Adam,
fell and died in Christ. But